Making Space for Culture is the latest handbook in the forum’s Policy and Practice Series. The publication explores how world cities are working to maintain and develop a dynamic mix of spaces and facilities for cultural production and consumption, amidst the current affordability crisis these cities are facing.

Providing twelve case studies from across the globe (incl. London, Istanbul, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Madrid), the handbook illustrates some of the ways the forum’s member cities are responding to these challenges and provides tangible recommendations across funding and finance, planning and policy, and the development and provision of space.

]]>2017-08-10T16:40:00+00:00http://bop.co.uk/site/new-uk-china-equity-crowdfunding-opportunities
http://bop.co.uk/site/new-uk-china-equity-crowdfunding-opportunities#When:16:14:00ZOver the last year BOP Consulting and Nesta, with funding from the British Government’s China Prosperity Fund, have explored opportunities for building bridges and fostering new partnerships between the UK and Chinese equity crowdfunding markets.

As a result of this work, we have set-out a series of recommendations to promote cooperation through equity crowdfunding between China and the UK.

These recommendations are detailed in our briefing note on the Chinese equity crowdfunding market available here.

A complete regulatory and market comparison study on the UK and Chinese equity crowdfunding industries is available here.

For a full breakdown and more background to the project, our partners Nesta have published a review of the work here.

]]>2017-08-10T16:14:00+00:00http://bop.co.uk/site/chinas-booming-childrens-theatre-sector
http://bop.co.uk/site/chinas-booming-childrens-theatre-sector#When:12:27:00ZChildren’s Theatre is the fastest growing sector in China’s live entertainment industry. As education policy encourages greater integration with the arts, the number of theatres expand, and disposable income amongst the middle class continues to rise, the country provides opportunities for UK children’s theatre companies.

Last year President Xi Jinping announced that the “lack of innovation ability has been the Achilles’ heel for economic development.” Drawing direct links between creativity, the arts and economic success, arts programmes are being rolled out across the country to schools. Many schools are including drama classes as part of the curriculum and drama summer schools are becoming popular in the major urban areas.

Furthermore, alongside the major dedicated children’s theatres like Shanghai International Children’s Art Theatre and Beijing Children’s Art Theatre (two of China’s new 120 theatres built in the last 15 years with over 1000 capacity) new smaller children’s theatres are appearing like the Xiao Wan Jia Theatre in Shanghai and Madame Tussaud’s new venue in Beijing - discussed further here.

Despite a slowdown in the economy, there remains a massive increase in disposable income amongst the middle class. Tickets prices for children’s theatre reflect this, increasing 150% between 2014 and 2015, making the national average ticket 250rmb (approx. £30 GBP, almost £10 higher than the UK average). With higher prices, parents are also becoming increasingly discerning of quality.

Consequently, the children’s theatre sector in China is booming, with revenue increasing by £18 million in 2015 to a total of £102 million (the UK’s 2014 gross revenue from family theatre was £12.3 million). This is an increase of over 20% from 2014, almost three times faster than the musical theatre sector. Children’s theatre now claims 13% of the revenue from all the performing arts in China.

Looking abroad

Following demand, leading children’s theatres are looking abroad for productions and according to their deputy director, Zhao Yajing, the Shanghai International Children’s Art Theatre imports 80% of its performances. Even smaller venues like Little Ones Big Views (seating just over 100) have booked 15 foreign performances for their 2016 programme.

The same applies to children’s theatre festivals: in 2016 Beijing’s Children’s Theatre Festival hosted 46 international productions, seen by a total of 160,000 people. Based on the success of this and other festivals such as the Shanghai International Children’s Festival, the number of international festivals is growing: the Mianyang Children’s Theatre Festival in Sichuan is a new addition to 2017.

In China, UK theatre for young audiences is already highly regarded. ‘We love Scottish Theatre’ affirms Forrina Chen, founder and programmer for Little Ones Big Views theatre; this year the theatre has already hosted a three-week run of White by Catherine Wheels for Shanghai’s 2-4 year olds. Forrina is also excited about working with Barrowland Ballet, who will be back in the city this year for their second consecutive year.

However, despite opportunities for UK children’s theatre in China, cultural differences remain a barrier, and direct personal connections are crucial - ‘We’re not going to consider a collaboration unless we involve a partner we trust’, warns Luke Ma, Vice President of Shanghai Media Group, which frequently programmes international and children’s theatre in its eight theatres across Shanghai.

]]>2017-07-21T12:27:00+00:00http://bop.co.uk/site/bop-is-recruiting-for-a-senior-consultant
http://bop.co.uk/site/bop-is-recruiting-for-a-senior-consultant#When:11:42:00ZTo support the delivery of our new company strategy, we are looking for two Senior Consultants to join the team.

The role

As a Senior Consultant you will be expected to:

Be the intellectual lead on projects and manage their successful delivery, continuing our reputation for high quality and robust analysis

Win work, both by responding to tenders and in generating non tendered opportunities

Play a key part in (i) the continuous improvement and development of our existing methods; and (ii) the development of innovative ideas for new projects/ideas/markets.

The successful applicant will relish a demanding but rewarding working life, have an inquiring mind, and be an excellent problem-solver and communicator.

You will need to enjoy working as part of a team in a small company environment, while also possessing a high level of initiative and being capable of responding flexibly to a wide range of research tasks.The successful candidate should expect to work across the full portfolio of our projects on occasions, but the ability to demonstrate relevant specialisms is essential and you will have an outstanding track record in areas of expertise and practice that fit with our core business.

We are also open to hearing from very exceptional candidates who can make a strong case as to how other skillsets and areas of expertise are relevant to our work.

What we are looking for:

8+ years’ work experience – either in a consultancy business, other research organisation, or a related BOP client area

A track record in winning new business – either through writing winning bids or generating non-tendered work

This is an 18 month teaching and consultation programme for up to 25 arts and culture organisations throughout England. The primary objective of the programme is increased financial resilience, and is relevant to organisations with nascent, intermediate, and advanced fundraising practices.

The programme is designed to accelerate participating organisations revenue-generating capacity, with an emphasis on fundraising. Technical assistance will be provided in the areas of:

The programme is for organisations with an annual turnover of £100,000 or more; at least one full-time staff member; a board (or advisory body) that meets at least quarterly; and at least three years of consistent programming history.

Applications are open until Monday, 31 July and are to be submitted here.

An information session will be held on Wednesday, June 28 online via WebEx by Brett Egan, President of Arts Manager International. This session is open to all organisations interested in finding out more about the programme. The session will run from 13:30 – 14:30 pm GMT, and is available for registration here.

South Asian Dance, courtesy of Los Angeles County Arts Commission

Our World Cities Culture Finance Report was published last week, after an intensive 18-month research process. The report is the first global comparative study on how culture is financed in world cities.

In all the cities, cultural organisations are close partners with city administrations. So in addition to analysing current funding landscape, the report also provides these organisations with ideas which they can use to take a proactive approach to the future of funding in their cities. Many of these mechanisms are sector-led, and include:

City-wide crowdfunding campaigns. In Stockholm, Sydney and Seoul, crowdfunding platforms are used as match funding from national and city culture budgets. Some cities make donations to cultural organisations tax deductible.

Cooperative models. In Amsterdam, a ‘cooperative’ of professional musicians invests €1,000 each in a building and individually performs several concerts per year for paying members.

Participatory budgeting, as in New York where city residents participate in the allocation of capital funds

Shenzhen has embraced a concept known as ‘Culture +’ which gives organisations the flexibility to access venture funding through combinations such as ‘culture + technology,’ ‘culture + entrepreneurship,’ and ‘culture + finance’.

There are even suggestions for securing direct revenue. For example, in Los Angeles a 2.5% on the gross receipts of some cable operators supports the filming and distribution of performing arts programmes.

Interested in the top issues defining the Chinese cultural and creative sector? You can sign up to our BOP China newsletter here.

]]>2017-05-10T10:56:00+00:00http://bop.co.uk/site/will-metro-mayors-offer-new-leadership-to-culture-and-creative-industries
http://bop.co.uk/site/will-metro-mayors-offer-new-leadership-to-culture-and-creative-industries#When:07:03:00ZToday, six Metro Mayors will be elected. In Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley, West of England, and the West Midlands, they will be directly elected leaders of Combined Authorities – taking responsibility for a range of responsibilities, from transport to planning, housing to infrastructure, that have been held in Whitehall.

I have written for Policy Network on the potential that enhanced city region leadership holds for culture and creativity. Looking more closely at how these issues have featured in the elections:

“Greater Manchester is home to some fantastic museums, galleries, theatres and live music venues,” writes Andy Burnham in his manifesto. “But if we don’t take steps to support culture across the City-Region then we are in danger of falling behind.”

“We will,” declares Steve Rotheram in Liverpool, “support ground-breaking initiatives at our universities including the Sensor City project and work in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Robotics.”

Both the leading candidates in the West Midlands, Siôn Simon and Andy Street, participated at a hustings on the creative and cultural industries at the REP, Birmingham last week.

Many other issues have been covered in these mayoral elections – housing, planning, transport, inward investment, mental health, tourism, exports – to which the creative and cultural industries are relevant. These industries have the potential to help deliver many of the goals set by these new Mayors. We will be keeping a close eye in the coming months, blogging their developments.

Just over a year ago, we blogged on the challenges facing small music venues. Research commissioned by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, now looks at these challenges. It finds that twenty-one of London venues are at risk of closure due to business rates increases.

In addition, this research by the GLA reports:

At least 14,000 performance opportunities for emerging artists could be cut

Earlier this year, we reported on the large economic gain to Ireland from live entertainment. Venue closures would diminish similar returns in London. While the biggest economic gains are associated with larger venues, it is the smaller venues most threatened by these increased business rates.

The loss of small venues will both impact on the essential opportunities they provide new artists trying to make a name for themselves, as well as diluting the live music ecosystem - reducing access to live music, which so often inspires and uplifts.

]]>2017-04-18T11:42:00+00:00http://bop.co.uk/site/review-of-the-video-games-sector-in-the-west-midlands
http://bop.co.uk/site/review-of-the-video-games-sector-in-the-west-midlands#When:16:16:00ZOur review of the video games sector in the West Midlands, sponsored by the Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Ukie, has been published.

Focusing on the established cluster of games businesses around Leamington - known as ‘Silicon Spa’ - it develops a ‘blueprint for growth’ of the sector across access to finance, skills training, education, development of eSports, and promoting ‘games as culture’ to engage young people to study computing.

Some of our key findings were:

The West Midlands’ Games Sector is a 21st century growth industry. Around 130 of the UK’s best games businesses are based in the West Midlands, creating, highly skilled, productive jobs and opportunities throughout the region. The games industry in the West Midlands generated an estimated £224 million in GVA in 2015 and employed around 3,500 people.

The global video games industry is an economic and cultural success story – but despite the health of the industry at a ‘macro’ level, difficulties in accessing development finance and talent make life harder than ever for smaller games developers.

Increasing competition in the console games market – still the most profitable sector, despite the growth of mobile games – leads to higher budgets for both production and marketing, increasing risk for medium and large developers.

Games are an example of ‘digital manufacturing’, requiring and developing a blend of transferable 21st century skills. Making games is a fusion of art, design, programming, data analysis, science, maths – all skills transferable to other sectors. The process of developing games creates innovation in technology and tools for their manufacture – many of which are transferable to other sectors.

eSports is the biggest spectator sport you have never heard of. A form of competitive team-based multi-player gaming watched by live, TV and online audiences, by 2019, eSports will be a billion-dollar industry.

The interrelationship between history and culture, quality and technological innovation are the drivers of the dynamism and competitiveness of ‘Silicon Spa’. To allow the cluster to ‘punch its weight’ and act as a driver for regional competitiveness and growth, the factors that drive the international standing and competitiveness of Silicon Spa need to be differentiated from widespread and generalised growth of the creative industries in the region and celebrated as one of the UK’s leading digital manufacturing clusters.